


Lovely Day For It; Part V

by Spoonzi



Series: We Joyless Few [5]
Category: We Happy Few (Video Game)
Genre: A punch is thrown so, Dreams, Flashbacks, Joy Pills, Minor Violence, Multi, Off Joy, POV Alternating, Rating because they say fuck like twice and there is flashback kisses, Talking, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23382208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoonzi/pseuds/Spoonzi
Summary: Part V: Thomas & Clancy’s Story
Relationships: Other Relationships Mentioned and in Flashbacks, Thomas Everett (OC) & Clancy Dawnburrow (OC)
Series: We Joyless Few [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680010
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You know the drill right? In this we have characters communicating because I won’t be using miscommunication as a plot device especially with these too.

**Thomas**

Thomas all but rips his mask off when he gets to his house. His hair is a bit messy, blond stands falling in his eyes and obscuring his vision as he throws the mask onto his counter. It skitters across the red plastic and lands wonkily half on top of his mother’s cookbook.  _ He remembers it’s his mother’s.  _

Trooping up the stairs, he tears at his tie yanking it from around his neck to throw it haphazardly near his closet as he struggles out of his sweater vest, the bright, happy pattern making his eye twitch. The knit material is thrown in the same direction as his tie almost violently sending him stumbling back against the wall. Something shakes in his pocket at the movement. Not something. Pills. Joy pills

Thomas growls as he yanks the bottle out of his slacks and throws it as hard as he can across the room. It hits the wall and then the floor, cream colored pills falling across the circular, shag rug. He breathes heavily for a moment just looking at them before pushing off the wall and wrenching open the door of his small bathroom. 

The medicine cabinet is small but there is a mirror on it and even if it’s tarnished around the edges he can see himself. The blond shoves his hair out of his face, eyeing himself. There are lines next to his eyes. Age lines or forced smile lines he isn’t sure, but they are there and they make him look almost distinguished. He has freckles too,  _ freckles _ , dancing across his cheekbones and his temples and climbing the thin bridge of his nose. There must be at least fifty of them in all sizes and shapes and he wonders why he can’t remember if he has them in other places. 

Unbuttoning the buttons of his shirt, he pulls it opened to look. Bruises from his own arms and fingers are beginning to make an appearance on his torso, but he had already known they would be there. Freckles splash over his shoulders like paint and small sun bursts of them trace his ribs more so on the right than the left. He touches a dark one near the base of his neck.  _ He has freckles _ . Little marks scattered across his entire body that he couldn’t even remember were there and he changes clothes two to three times a day. 

Thomas stumbles out of the bathroom, kicking his shoes off as he goes. His socks are purple, definitely not matching his green and yellow vest from earlier and he finds that that bothers him so he toes those off as well, tumbling into his bed and just laying there. He stares up at the ceiling fingers idly tracing the marks on his ribs and his shoulders. Eventually he drifts to sleep. 

_ Thomas walks next to Clancy through the park, a cricket ball thumping between his palms as he tosses it back and forth, back and forth. He can feel another making a lump in the pocket of his trousers. Clancy jostles the cricket bats he’s carrying over his shoulder drawing the blond’s attention. “What’s wrong?” He asks, rolling his eyes because the taller boy only ever gets twitchy if he wants to ask something.  _

_ “Have you ever kissed someone?” The blue-eyed boy asks causing the other to stop. He continues walking for a couple steps before he realizes and he turns to look at the blond.  _

_ “Why?” Thomas questions eyeing his friend suspiciously.  _

_ Clancy shrugs, looking a bit sheepish. “Just a question.” _

_ “Yeah.” The blond admits after a moment of silence. “Sally Boyle kissed me once. She did it to make Arthur Hastings jealous.” He tells him shrugging and definitely leaving out the part where he hated it so much he went right home and brushed his teeth.  _

_ “Oh.” The taller teen says, sounding a little disappointed. “I haven’t. Kissed anyone, I mean.” _

_ Thomas rolls his eyes and closes them, tilting his head back to let the afternoon sun warm his face. “I’m sure-“ He gets cut off by warm chapped lips slotting over his own and in his surprise he doesn’t jerk back for a few seconds. When he does, his whole body filled with anger, he swings out as hard as he can punching the other boy in the nose.  _

_ Clancy goes stumbling back and the cricket bats scatter across the path. His hands are clenched over his nose, blood gushing between his fingers and blue eyes wide in shock. He pulls his hands away to look at the red staining them and his nose is slightly crooked and split wide opened over the top.  _

_ Thomas’ hand throbs and he drops the ball he’s holding with the other one, glaring fiercely at his best friend. “Don’t you  _ **_ever_ ** _ do that again! You hear me, Clancy Dawnburrow? Don’t you  _ **_ever_ ** _ , and I mean  _ **_ever_ ** _ , kiss me unless you mean it!” He shouts before whirling around and running the whole way home.  _

Thomas jerks awake to his doorbell buzzing erratically. He jerks out of bed, eyes searching wildly for his clock before he’s throwing himself out the door of his room. He buttons his shirt buttons on his way down the stairs and makes a b-line for the kitchen in search of his mask. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Clancy**

Clancy tried not to think about what Thomas said. He really does. He goes about his patrol. Pops another strawberry joy when his first starts to wear off. He tries not to think about his friend and the hurt in his chocolaty eyes. He thinks about it a lot. As much as he tries not to, he can’t stop thinking about it. It plagues his mind like bees at the hive buzzing through his head nonstop. 

His patrol passes in distraction. To be perfectly honest, when he slides down the pole into the bunks at the end of it, he can’t remember any of it at all. That includes both before and after Thomas made his miraculous appearance. 

Without his consent, the brunet’s legs take him to the bathroom and he pauses in front of one of the many mirrors. His hands shake as he brings them up to his face and it takes him a long moment before he can actually pull the firm material of his mask off. He looks in the mirror at his face and he doesn’t even recognize himself. 

The moles that Thomas had mentioned are there just like he said, two little black spots over his pale skin. Another dots above his right eyebrow, he notices they are thick and dark like his hair, and a fourth rests near the right corner of his mouth on his jaw. He’s got lines on his face next to the corners of his lips and around his eyes, from smiling he guesses. His nose is crooked too, a long, raised white scar ripping over the bridge of it almost violently. He can’t remember where he got it,  _ god he can’t remember where he got it _ . 

Clancy is unsure of how long he stands in the mirror, his smiling mask resting in his hands, just looking at himself. He can’t even bear smiling even if he wonders if it will look different without the mask. When he hears footsteps coming towards the bathroom he drops his head and shoves the mask back on before looking up again and catching the soft grey eyes of Constable Henry Simmons through the mirror. Turning, he speaks without thinking. “I need to visit Thomas. I think he ate something off today and I’m a bit worried about him.”

The older officer smiles and there is something soft about it even through his own mask. “I figured. Do me a favor and go on his maintenance route with him as well. I’ll cover your patrols but at least then I can sooth Mary’s nagging about you lads.” The man says and waves him off. 

The trip to Thomas’ house is a blur. He doesn’t even stop to change out of his uniform before he’s sliding down the pole nearest to his friend’s street which he finds is still three blocks away. In the dead of night he can walk a bit faster than he’s supposed to, long legs eating up the pavement as he briskly makes his way to the blond’s little house. He pushes his finger down on the buzzer and with the realization that Thomas may be sleeping he does it several more times in attempt to wake the blond. 

Moments later the door swings open. Standing barefoot, in a shirt that has two buttons undone, with bed rumpled hair and tired eyes, Thomas stares at him. He blinks and neither of them speak. It’s a long moment until the brown-eyed man is stepping aside, yanking the door farther opened and holding his arm out in a gesture that undoubtedly means come in. 

He steps inside watching as the smaller man closes and locks the door before moving past him. He follows the man to the room right off the living area where Thomas keeps all of his tools and tinkering things and sits in the armchair in the corner of the room when the smaller male points at it. The blond doesn’t talk, he just moves around the area gathering materials from shelves and boxes as if the bobby isn’t even there. 

When he dumps an armload of things on the cleaner of one of his two work tables, Clancy finally speaks. “What are you doing?”

The brown-eyed man begins to sort the things he grabbed out not looking up from his capable hands to answer. “Trying to decide whether I want to talk to you or not after today. After you showing up here at nearly three in the morning like everything is fine and normal.”

The Constable swallows and looks at his hands, they’re encased in pristine, white gloves and sitting uselessly in his lap. “I meant what are you building.” He clarifies looking back up to his friend. 

Thomas doesn’t answer him. Instead, he pulls out a hand saw and begins sawing a canteen in half just under the widest part. “I looked at my face.” The brunet admits causing his friend to freeze. “I have a scar on my nose and I can’t remember how I got it. It wouldn’t have even bothered me if you hadn’t said what you did today.”

The blond flinches at the mention of the scar. After a moment, he resumes his sawing and when he’s done with the canteen he sets both halves aside carefully and grabs another to saw some more. “I’m making water purifying canteens. Temporary but efficient.” He says finally not addressing why he reacted to the mention of the scar. 

“Why?” Clancy inquires genuinely curious and if he asks about Thomas’ inventions then he won’t have the urge to dig for information about the scar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thomas**

“Why?” Clancy asks from the chair in the corner that the blond now remembers he dragged there years ago specifically for the taller man. 

“There’s joy in the water here.” He responds simply, setting aside the two halves of the second canteen so that he can grab the next one. 

“Oh.” The brunet says sounding sheepish. His voice is deeper now, more even and less fluctuating. It still makes the blond’s fingers tighten around the handle of his saw. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Thomas sighs placing the canteen pieces to the side and grabbing the last one. “Why are you here, Clancy?”

“Truth?” The other man’s voice lilts like it’s a question and he only gets a grunt out of the maintenance worker in answer. “I don’t know. I wanted to see you, but I have no idea what to say.” He pauses for a moment leaving them in a tense silence before asking, “This whole situation is a bit fucked, innit?”

The question shocks a laugh out of the smaller man, his shoulders shaking as the mirthful sound bubbles out from between his lips. He closes his eyes and tries to smother the sound with the back of his hand completely missing the awe filled look he garners from the officer. When he gets a hold of himself he nods, placing the pieces of the last canteen with the others and hanging the saw back on its hooks. “Yeah, it’s kind of fucked.”

They sit in a comfortable silence for a long few moments as Thomas drags over his stool and begins to work on the filtering mechanisms. Finally after probably half an hour of silence and one finished miniature purifier, Clancy speaks again. “If I stop taking joy people will notice pretty quickly.”

The blond doesn’t look up from the spinning mechanism he’s piecing together. “So don’t. I wasn’t going to make you quit joy. I was asking you to listen to me, to support me because I’m stopping joy. I want to  _ remember _ , Clancy.”

“That’s just it, mate.” The bobby sighs. “Maybe I want to remember too.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Clancy**

Thomas places his doohickey aside and levels the brunet with a searching look. His normally soft amber eyes are dark and hard as he looks for anything, large or small, on the bobby’s face that might say he’s pandering or lying. All at once, his eyes change going soft like chocolate again and he turns back to his table to begin putting together another one of his tiny machines. 

After another short stretch of silence, the blond says decidedly. “We’ll leave then. We’re smart. We can come up with a plan and leave Wellington Wells behind.”

“Where would we even go?” Clancy finds himself asking before he tacks on. “I’ve never been smart, I remember that at least. I know you’ve always been the smart one.”

“Ireland, maybe.” Thomas shrugs, his thin fingers moving aside the little thing he built so he can make what the constable thinks is the last one. The blond looks at him, eyes steady on his. “If we do this then no one gets left behind. We do this smart and we do this together.”

“Okay.” The taller man agrees something tight in his chest fills with warmth. It’s different and odd and not totally unakin to the feeling you get right after you take a joy. 

“Okay.” The smaller male repeats before grabbing the larger parts of the four canteens and settling the small machine thingamajiggers in them. After that the process is quick and Clancy can’t help but watch in awe as the other man uses a pen-like utensil that glows a fire red at the end to melt the canteens back together. The only thing that gives away that they are any different from other canteens is a line around them where they were melted back together. That line is quickly taken care of as the blond wraps decorate tape around the entirety of each of the containers. 

He sets them all down and looks over at the officer gesturing with a nod of his head. “Go get some sleep, Clancy. I’ll wake you before I leave for work.”

Clancy stands up slowly, his bones aching and he figures he should have taken another joy a while ago but it’s safe here. “I’ve been allowed to come with you on your route tomorrow, if you want me to that is.”

“Then I’ll wake you up for breakfast.” Thomas flaps his hand at him. “Off you go now.”

Clancy ignores the clothes and the pills in the floor in favor of removing his helmet and boots. He sets them both neatly next to the bed and climbs on to the oval mattress. Sleep comes shockingly fast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Character Pinterest Boards](https://pin.it/2uvJm9b)


End file.
